


Back to Where You've Never Been

by Welfycat



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Community: stargateland, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-09
Updated: 2011-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welfycat/pseuds/Welfycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was harder than he expected. He honestly wasn't even sure what he'd expected, but it wasn't to feel old and isolated and far too wise for his years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back to Where You've Never Been

**Author's Note:**

> Written for StargateLand, Prompt: 14- SG1, Clone O'Neill, high school

So he was 15, couldn't drink, couldn't drive, and couldn't live alone. Well, he couldn't legally do any of those things, that didn't mean he didn't do them. He had a crappy little apartment that the government had set him up in, he had a food budget, so at least he wasn't working whatever jobs they'd let a 15 year old work, and he was basically truly free for what seemed like the first time in his life. Well, free in that he wasn't taking orders from anyone and wouldn't be getting any calls from the military at three in the morning telling him to wake up and go save the planet, again. Instead, he got to go to high school.

Part of him had considered doing early enrollment for college, and he probably would at least part time when he was 16 and could drive a car. But it would have taken more effort to develop a background for a prodigy who was ready for college at fifteen and ironically they probably have been more interested in where his parents were at a college then they were at the high school. The high school seemed pretty used to kids coming in on their own and figuring out their own stuff. He'd taken home the registration packet for his 'parents' to fill out and had ignored the slightly painful reminder of filling out registration papers for Charlie for elementary for the first time, remembering how nervous Sara had been about sending Charlie to kindergarten, and then to first grade, and so on.

The thing he was slowly discovering was that they longer he stayed in his clone body, even though technically he'd never actually been in his adult body, and the longer he stayed away from the SGC, the more distant the memories and emotions associated with them seemed to become. Part of him felt that he should be fighting harder to keep those memories, that maybe he should have fought harder to keep the life that he'd lived and worked for. But having everyone, even his team who he'd been with for so long they were beyond family, be so completely unable to treat him like an adult even after they were convinced that it was him in this awkwardly lanky body had practically made the decision for him. And then seeing the real O'Neill come back and need his life to go on as normal, he knew that he had to get out of there. He knew that he could have stayed at the SGC, maybe done a degree by correspondence and worked in the labs until he was 'old enough' to go back out into the field, but that had sounded about as appealing as letting the Asgard let him degenerate completely.

In the end he wound up calling himself Jon Niall, and Daniel would probably never guess that he knew the Gaelic descent of his own last name, and walked into Mountain Springs High School for his first day. There was something to be said for having years of military service already behind you before entering high school and he managed to get through the hallways even in his shorter and skinnier body without any problems. Sitting in a desk in his first class, his schedule folded in his front pocket, he swung his feet while trying not to marvel that he could swing his feet while sitting back in a normal sized chair. The work seemed easy enough, but calculus was mostly going to be a basic review for him anyway. It was the English classes he was concerned about, though this was the first time he could remember being worried about grades outside of his time at the Academy. But if he wanted to do college early, and he really wasn't sure that he wanted to spend three years in high school, he needed to show that he was capable. Or have the military intervene and get him in, but he'd always preferred to do things on his own terms.

The day passed quickly enough and he found himself walking back to his apartment, dumping his bag on the floor and heading directly to the fridge. One thing he'd discovered about being fifteen was he certainly had the appetite of a teenager again. After microwaving two burritos and dropping down on the couch, he wondered how exactly this was going to work in the long term. It wasn't that he wasn't entirely capable of being alone and living on his own. But he'd gotten used to having his team invade his house on their days off, or driving over to Daniel's for a beer, or taking Teal'c out to a game, or even sitting in Sam's lab and listening to her explain whatever it was that she was working on. He hadn't expected high school to feel this isolating, to feel so old when he was surrounded by what basically amounted to children. And no matter how many times Daniel had told him he was behaving childishly, it wasn't the same thing at all.


End file.
